[183] Wright, Eng. Dial. Dict. Cf. Notes and Queries, 5th Ser. X, 51.
[184] Heltedigtning, II, 252.
[185] The earliest record of the term "cutting the neck" seems to be found in Randle Holme's Store House of Armory, 1688 (II, 73). It may be noted that Holme was a Cheshire man.
[186] Mannhardt, Mythologische Forschungen, Strassburg, 1884, 326 etc.
[187] Quod dum servi Dei propensius actitarent, inspiratum est eis salubre consilium et (ut pium est credere) divinitus provisum. Die etenim statuto mane surgentes monachi sumpserunt scutum rotundum, cui imponebant manipulum frumenti, et super manipulum cereum circumspectae quantitatis et grossitudinis. Quo accenso scutum cum manipulo et cereo, fluvio ecclesiam praetercurrenti committunt, paucis in navicula fratribus subsequentibus. Praecedebat itaque eos scutum et quasi digito demonstrans possessiones domui Abbendoniae de jure adjacentes nunc huc, nunc illuc divertens; nunc in dextra nunc in sinistra parte fiducialiter eos praeibat, usquedum veniret ad rivum prope pratum quod Beri vocatur, in quo cereus medium cursum Tamisiae miraculose deserens se declinavit et circumdedit pratum inter Tamisiam et Gifteleia, quod hieme et multociens aestate ex redundatione Tamisiae in modum insulae aqua circumdatur.
Chronicon Monasterii de Abingdon, ed. Stevenson, 1858, vol. I, p. 89.
[188] Chadwick, Origin, 278.
[189] Olrik, Heltedigtning, II, 251.
[190] But is this so? "The word Sämpsä (now sämpsykka) 'small rush, scirpus silvaticus, forest rush,' is borrowed from the Germanic family (Engl. semse; Germ. simse)." Olrik, 253. But the Engl. "semse" is difficult to track.
See also note by A. Mieler in Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, X, 43, 1910.